So, here's a less stressful and hopefully fun post. Trying to lighten the mood, maybe.
I remember when my little brother turned 8, and I was like 10 or 11, he got this plastic space helmet with a red see-thru visor for his 8th birthday. Back in those days, kids birthdays were always held at the Chuck E. Cheese pizza, because they had a ton of video games there, along with animitronic robots who would periodically do this corny song and dance thing. (And pizza. Almost forgot that last thing.) So, quarters in hand, we all would go nuts playing stuff like Pac Man, Asteroids, Defender, Centipede, Tempest, and, my favorite- Xevious. But my brother was wearing his brand new plastic space helmet in the arcade, blasting away at space invaders, bugs, and giant space rocks, and all the other 7 and 8 year olds thought he was the coolest kid in the whole place. Everyone wanted to be like my brother, with his spiffy plastic space helmet. Except me and my fellow 11 year olds, who snarkily thought, man, what a dork.
So, the next year, I turned 12, and got a Dungeons and Dragons t-shirt for my birthday. Stoked!. The previous year, us kids had discovered Dungeons and Dragons, and we thought we were the coolest kids ever. It was a fun game and fun way to escape with some dice and a crude hand drawn map full of orcs, trolls, and undead monsters. So I proudly wore that shirt to soccer practice and thought I was hot shit. But a few kids, who were a couple years older than me, said, man, Dungeons and Dragons? You're into that? You are such a dork!
Then, before we were even of legal age to drink, drink we did, and thought we were the coolest kids ever. "Beer and Bong Hits dude! Lets Get Fucked Up!" went the common refrain. Us college aged kids, proudly bragging about how many beers and how many shots we had the previous night. Sometimes we'd encounter old dudes who were as wasted as we were. We always thought, at the time, "Man, that dude needs to be in A.A. I hope I'm not still doing that shit when I'm 40! By the way, I need another beer. Hey Noa, wanna pack another bowl?"
And I see these kids now, many of them barely 21, at bars and clubs (When I have the occasion to go out) and think, man, what a bunch of drunken idiots. Were we really that obnoxious? Well, yeah, I guess we were. I'm thankfully pretty much a lightweight these days.
But I did get a lot of grief back in High School for liking Iron Maiden, Slayer, and Metallica. "You like that loud metal crap? Geez, you are such a dork!" the preppy and/or jocky kids would say to me. Flash forward, however many years ago that was- and, well, I can't help it; I still like Iron Maiden, Slayer, and Metallica. I guess I'm just a big dork.
